Privacy Policy

1. General provisions

This policy explains what data esblitz.com processes, why, and what rights you have. It applies to all visitors of both language versions of the site (RU/EN).

esblitz.com is a CS2 reference site with no user accounts, no forms, and no newsletters. You can use every page without telling us anything about yourself — that's by design.

2. What data we process

• Analytics data (only after your consent): pages viewed, country, device and browser type, clicks on site buttons — for example, a click-through to a skin marketplace or the Telegram channel.
• Server logs: IP address, request time, user agent — standard technical records every web server keeps.
• Anonymous view counter: the site counts article views as aggregate totals (article → number). No IP addresses, no identifiers. It works regardless of the consent banner, because it stores nothing personal.
• What we never collect: names, emails, phone numbers, payment data, precise geolocation, account data (there are no accounts). We don't buy data about you from anyone, and we don't sell or share anything — there's nothing personal to sell.

3. Purposes and legal bases

• Analytics → understanding which content is useful → your consent (you can decline, the site works the same).
• Server logs → security, abuse protection, debugging → legitimate interest.
• NEXT_LOCALE cookie → serving the site in your chosen language → technical necessity.
• View counter → showing which articles are popular → legitimate interest (the data is anonymous by construction).

4. Cookies

• _ga, _ga_* — set by Google Analytics, only after you click “Accept”; used for visit statistics; lifetime up to 2 years (Google’s standard).
• NEXT_LOCALE — set by the site; remembers your interface language; technical, identifies nobody.
• __cf_bm and similar — may be set by Cloudflare for bot protection; short-lived (around 30 minutes).

The site sets no other cookies of its own.

5. localStorage

Your theme, your consent choice, and housekeeping flags like “this article has already been counted” are stored in your browser’s localStorage. These entries never leave your device and can be removed at any time by clearing site data.

6. Consent and how to withdraw it

On your first visit, a banner offers “Accept” or “Decline”. If you decline, analytics scripts don’t load at all — and the site works exactly the same.

To withdraw consent later, clear the site data in your browser — the banner will ask again. Note: clearing localStorage alone brings the banner back, but analytics cookies that were already set only disappear when you clear cookies too.

7. Third-party services

• Google Analytics (Google LLC, USA) — visit statistics; loads only after consent. How Google handles this data: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare Inc., USA) — CDN and attack protection in front of the site; like any proxy, it processes requests to deliver pages.
• YouTube (Google) — some articles embed videos in privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com). The player loads from Google’s servers when the page opens, but sets no cookies until you press Play.
• Netcup (Germany, EU) — hosting provider; our server and its logs live there.
• Skin marketplaces and stores (Avan.Market, Lis-Skins, Tradeit.gg, Moon.Market, Aim.Market, SkinSwap, Amazon) — we pass them nothing about you. Clicking a link simply takes you to their site, where their own rules apply.

8. Affiliate disclosure

Some outgoing links to skin marketplaces and gear stores are affiliate links, marked with rel="sponsored". If you buy or trade skins through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Commissions never affect our rankings, reviews, or the data we publish. We don’t take money for placements in rankings and we don’t write paid reviews.

9. International data transfers

Our server is located in the EU. Google and Cloudflare are US companies certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework — the mechanism that legalizes data transfers between the EU and the USA.

10. Data retention

• Google Analytics event data — no longer than 14 months (Google Analytics’ maximum retention setting); _ga cookies — up to 2 years.
• Server logs — rotated automatically; old entries are deleted within a few weeks.
• View counter — aggregate totals are kept indefinitely; they contain no personal data that could be deleted.

11. Security

The entire site runs over HTTPS. Cloudflare shields the server from attacks. Server access is limited to the site owner. We store no databases of personal data — which remains the best protection of all.

12. Do Not Track

We don’t process browser DNT signals separately — our consent banner is stricter than DNT: analytics is off by default and turns on only after you explicitly accept.

13. Your rights

You can request access to your data, its correction or deletion, restriction of processing, object to processing, withdraw consent at any time, and lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Honest caveat: since there are no accounts, we usually can't match analytics data to a specific person — which is the point. Send any request to [email protected]; we'll answer within 30 days.

14. Links to other sites

We link to external sites (HLTV.org, marketplaces, stores). Once you leave esblitz.com, their privacy practices apply — check each service’s policy.

15. Changes to this policy

All updates are published on this page; if a change is significant, we’ll flag it noticeably on the site. We won’t reduce your rights under this policy without a clear notice.

Effective date: July 4, 2026. Last updated: July 5, 2026.